Soccer Activities for Physical Education

Soccer is the world’s most popular sport! It’s also a great way to work on balance, teamwork, footwork, spatial awareness and so much more. These activities, assessments, and bulletin board ideas we’ve compiled from PE Central will help make sure you and your group get the most out of your soccer unit!

Bulletin Boards

• Achieving our GOALS in Physical Education Soccer!

This bulletin board is perfect for the start of any soccer unit. The bulletin board shares “What is Soccer?” “Fun Facts” and vocabulary that will be focused on during the unit. The left hand side of the bulletin board provides students with an interactive challenge to label the positions of a full team. This board help with setting expectations and teaching the basics of the sport.

• Monkeys & Soccer

This board’s purpose is to get the students interested in soccer as they pass it in the hallway. It gives the students a brief overview of what skills they can expect to learn. Using monkeys, soccer balls and sparkling borders and letters help capture attention as they pass. The bananas on the bulletin board list the 5 skills in the unit.

Assessments

• Soccer Skill Assessment: This basic idea only requires soccer balls and some tape. It’s a great way to assess where your group is with the fundamentals of kicking.
• Shooting Mechanics: This assessment helps assess whether or not students understand the basics behind shooting a soccer ball. The one linked above is for right-footed shooters, but here is the one for lefties.

Instant Activities

• Statues and Dribblers: This activity is simple and works for any age group! great for working on keeping the ball close
• Noodle Stop Soccer: For any grade, this activity is a perfect way to warm-up and practice dribbling and kicking with the inside of the foot.

Lessons for Grades 3-5

• Soccer Pinball Wizard: Fun activity that lets the group practice dribbling into a kick.
• Tic-Tac Goal: Perfect activity to work on inside of the foot passing. This activity allows you to walk around and observe and assess.
• Ghostbuster Soccer: Works on basics of dribbling, passing and shooting. Also helps with foundation of goalkeeping.

Lessons for Middle School

• Kickball Soccer: Great game for both students who love soccer, and those who love the basics of kickball.
• Stayin’ Alive: A fun, competitive way to work on ball juggling and reaction time. Easy to adapt to match the skill level of your group.
• Soccer Tennis:  This activity focuses on teamwork and accuracy. Constant communication, along with pinpoint volleys are the way to success in this game.

Lessons for Grades 9-12

• Soccer Golf: Adds a fun twist to your soccer unit. Make sure to add as much variety as you can to the different “holes” so the group will have to work on different kicks.
• World Cup Soccer Tournament:  This can go over multiple classes and is a fun way to play soccer, but also learn about the history of the sport around the world!
• Switch Soccer: A “keep away” style activity. This game helps reinforce the importance of using both sides of the field.

We hope that these lesson plan ideas, warm-up activities and bulletin board suggestions help you accomplish your goal of teaching students the fundamentals of the “Beautiful Game”, Soccer!

Search for more Soccer related activities from PE Central here. Play on!